


Little Brother Big

by I May Age Regress (shnuffeluv)



Series: Gibbs' Family [57]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Ableism, Age Play, Age Regression/De-Aging, Brotherly Affection, Brothers, Exposition, Gen, Gift Work, Non-Sexual Age Play, Stimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 15:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11466504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shnuffeluv/pseuds/I%20May%20Age%20Regress
Summary: Sometimes-most times, in fact-Timmy is Tony's big brother. But then there are the days where Timmy can't be big when he needs to be, and DiNozzo steps up to be the bigger man, and the bigger brother.





	Little Brother Big

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bowsandarrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowsandarrows/gifts).



> This one is for bowsandarrows, who wanted some of Timmy's stimming explained. Hope you enjoy it!

DiNozzo was sweeping the entire construction site, looking for evidence. Gibbs was looking for proof that one of these men had killed their recruiter, and he had a feeling that the evidence was lying around among the tools that the workers had been using for days after the poor man had been killed. McGee was doing much of the same, and Ziva was reviewing all the evidence they had so far, to look for any clues as to where a murder weapon might be. The sound in the half-built building carried all too well, and DiNozzo was hearing every drip of water, every step he took, every clang of metal from one of the others somewhere nearby going through possible evidence.

"Hey! I said _don't touch that_!" an unfamiliar voice called.

That came from the exact opposite direction of where DiNozzo had been looking for evidence, and he knew that it had to mean trouble for one of the others. DiNozzo rushed toward the nearest opening in a wall and peered in to where he had heard the voice come from. He could see McGee standing by a crate of...something. Tools, DiNozzo assumed, by the crowbar sticking out of it. McGee's fingers were clenching and relaxing in a slow, steady rhythm. There was a man who was casting a shadow DiNozzo could see, but he couldn't see the man himself. What was going on?

The man took a step forward and DiNozzo could see him now. He looked to be about six foot even, and was glaring down McGee like he wanted the man dead then and there. "It's bad enough you feds are stopping our schedule in its tracks. But now you're going around snooping in everyone's stuff?! You could take down a wall in here if you move the wrong thing! We've been working on this for weeks!" the man yelled.

McGee's fingers continued clenching and relaxing, and DiNozzo noticed how his friend started to sway slightly. "I have my orders just like you have yours. It's not my fault," McGee said quietly.

"Oh, a likely story!" the man said, continuing to yell. "Even if your boss told you to search the place, you can't go through personal stuff without a warrant!"

"It's out in the open and not labeled as personal property," McGee said. "I'm allowed to look at it."

" _At_  it! Not _through_  it! Which is what you were doing!"

The room went silent and DiNozzo strained to hear if there was any whispering. The only thing he heard was a faint hum, undeniably coming from a human being. DiNozzo knew that if he were going to step in, it would be now. "Can I help you, sir?" DiNozzo asked, rounding the corner and walking into the room he had been peering into, making sure his words sounded like a warning.

"Yeah, tell your little lackey to keep out of my stuff!" the man snarled.

"Oh, so this is _your_  stuff?" DiNozzo asked, pointing to the crate. "Mind if I look through it? We're kinda looking for a murder weapon."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I _do_  mind!" the man snapped.

DiNozzo turned to McGee, who was still humming under his breath. "McGee, go back to tell Gibbs we missed a suspect and if he could give you his pair of handcuffs to transfer to me that would be great." At McGee's hesitation, DiNozzo stepped toward him and murmured, "Don't be scared. If you need Papa, go to Papa. I've got this."

McGee's face quickly showed the panicked state Timmy was obviously trying to hold together in, before the man schooled his face into an impassive expression, nodded, and turned on his heel out of the room. DiNozzo smiled benignly at the still-fuming man in front of him until he was sure McGee was gone, and then his smile dropped faster than a landslide. "Okay, here's the facts, Jack: one, we have a dead Navy recruiter who was found less than a block from here poking out of a storm drain. Two, the murderer was obviously here, due to signs of a struggle in another room. Three, the murderer has at least worked here _in the past_  if he isn't here _now_ , because he obviously knew the area in order to _access_  said room. Four, we have a _search warrant_ , meaning that we can go through everything here if we need to, just to find our murder weapon which I have been assured, statistically speaking, is still here on. These. Grounds. Which leads me to five: anyone on our team can look through your stuff and it can be evidence. Whether that's me or my junior agent there, or my boss, or our liaison officer. You have no leg to stand on, so take my advice when I say shut up and let us do our jobs."

The man stewed on this for a minute, before turning to look at the exit McGee had walked through. "That junior agent of yours always like that?"

"Like what?" DiNozzo said, instantly on guard.

"The humming and rocking and twitching. I mean, you'd think he's a moron the way he acts!" the man laughed. "You and your people can't be very impressive if you let people like him on your team!"

DiNozzo fought the urge to shoot the man in the kneecaps. "Actually, McGee there's one hundred percent genius. He's the one who figured out the murder weapon would be here," DiNozzo replied.

"Must not get out very much though," the man laughed. "Kid in my elementary school used to do that. Flap his hands whenever he didn't like something and never made eye contact with anyone. Didn't come to school one day; I think they locked him up. Good riddance, I say. The world has no place for people like that."

DiNozzo reached for his gun, fingers twitching at the urge to pull it out. "McGee's not autistic. Even if he were, it wouldn't be a bad thing. The only people the world has no place for are people who refuse to change their ways. That's why we have prisons, you know. For people like you when your disgust at perfectly fine human beings becomes so great that you become the villain."

The man snarled and swung at DiNozzo, right hook connecting solidly on DiNozzo's jaw, busting his lip wide open. DiNozzo grinned and drew his gun. "Thank you for giving me a reason to use this," he said cheerily. "Now, either you're going to let me cuff you when McGee comes back, or you're not. It's your choice. However, I should warn you that refusing to comply often gets people shot."

Footsteps came from behind DiNozzo and he turned, ready to greet McGee and take his handcuffs, but was met instead with Gibbs. "I can take care of this one, DiNozzo," the man said calmly. "The others are free to go; we have their finger prints and Ziva found the weapon. Do we have to take this man in?"

"Well, he _did_  assault a federal officer, boss," DiNozzo said. "McGee in the van?"

"Yeah. He was on his phone and said that Timmy would like to talk to you."

DiNozzo nodded silently in understanding. "I'll go talk to him now, provided I have the time?"

Gibbs made a _shoo_  motion with his hand, and DiNozzo walked out of the room. But the second he was out of sight, he sprinted out to the van. He knocked on the back door before opening it up. Timmy was inside in a corner, sniffling. "Hey, buddy," DiNozzo said softly, closing the door behind him as he walked in. There was almost no light in the back, and it was dead silent save for DiNozzo's breathing and Timmy's soft sniffles, but he didn't mind. "How you feeling?"

Timmy looked up at him and made grabby hands, and DiNozzo smiled softly, walking over and kneeling in front of Timmy, hugging him. "Scary man," Timmy mumbled into DiNozzo's chest.

"I know," DiNozzo said softly.

"S-s-said I w-was s-stupid," Timmy continued.

DiNozzo winced. He knew the sound carried, but he didn't realize it carried _that_  well. "He was wrong, kid. There's no way anyone can walk up to you, hear a word that comes out of your mouth, and call you stupid."

"He did," Timmy said.

"He wasn't listening. I do, Papa does, Ziva does. And we all think you're smart, even if we're bad at saying it sometimes."

Timmy sniffled and looked up at DiNozzo. "Really?"

"You better believe it, kid," DiNozzo said with a grin. "Your big brother, that's me by the way, knows you're one of the smartest people he's ever met. And considering who we've worked with over the years, that's saying something."

DiNozzo could tell Timmy didn't believe him, but the boy was smiling under the praise, so DiNozzo counted the small success as a band-aid over the wound. It would need more work before it healed, or at least scarred over so it couldn't get worse.

"You're usually littler than me," Timmy said, pulling out of DiNozzo's hug.

"True," DiNozzo said. "What's your point?"

"I know you don't like to be 'sponsible for me after being 'sponsible all day, but you make a good big brother when you needta be," Timmy said.

DiNozzo smiled. "Thanks, kid. That means a lot. Ziva found our murder weapon, and that guy we were talking to busted my lip, meaning he's going to be charged with assault on a federal officer, and we can go back to the office soon."

Timmy frowned. "How come I get little at crime scenes sometimes but you don't?" he asked.

"I used to a lot, before you came on the team," DiNozzo said. "Before even Kate was there. Having someone take care of me in the off hours and having that same person take care of me in a different way at the office, the line between little and big wasn't always clear. But I got more used to the thought of being on the job and having to do things on my own sometimes. You're much greener than me when it comes to field work," Timmy made a disgruntled noise. "You forget I have eight years of field work on you, two at NCIS, two in Philly, two in Peoria, and another two in Baltimore. It's nothing to be ashamed of, it just means that you need more work to get to where I am. It took a while for me to get used to the thought too. But once I got used to it, being big got easier, even under stress."

"Oh," Timmy said. "Practice is hard, though."

"Yeah, it is," DiNozzo said, laughing. "But it's worth it in the end."

"I guess..." Timmy allowed. "But I like having a big brother sometimes, too."

DiNozzo smiled. "What say you to getting out of the back of the van and into my car? Our perp is gonna be back here in a couple minutes, and I doubt you wanna be around him."

"Okay," Timmy said.

DiNozzo stood and lead Timmy out the back of the van and to his personal car, opening up the back door to let Timmy slide in. Gibbs walked out of the building with the guy and caught DiNozzo's eye. DiNozzo jerked his head to the car and tilted his chin up. _Should I take the kid back to the office?_

Gibbs nodded and made a _go on_  motion with his hands.

DiNozzo got in the drivers seat and turned to Timmy. "Strap in, we're heading back to the office."

Timmy obliged and rocked slightly when until they were safely on the road. DiNozzo glanced at the boy in the rear view mirror. The hum of the car seemed to be calming him into a lull that would be safe to converse in without tears. "Hey, buddy? Can I ask you something kinda personal? It's okay if you don't want to answer."

"Mhm," Timmy hummed tracing the objects outside the car with his eyes.

"What's stimming like?" DiNozzo asked.

Timmy frowned, and DiNozzo was worried he had crossed some invisible line before the boy spoke up. "It's...hard to describe. But I can try?"

"That's all I ask, buddy. I just want to know how you feel when you do your thing."

Timmy squirmed in his seat with a shy grin. "When I get really really happy, my entire body gets really really stiff, like when you're excited and about to jump up and down or run around, y'know? Except instead of running, all my energy goes to my hands and they just move around lots," he said, hands unconsciously demonstrating his explanation. "And it's also kinda why I rock then, too. I just gotta get the energy out, and that's where it goes. And it feels good."

"Good how?" DiNozzo asked.

"Like...like when you think a ride is gonna be really scary, and then it winds up being super fun, and you're all breathless and laughing at the end. That's how it makes me feel when I happy stim."

"That's really cool!" DiNozzo said, smiling. "So you do that because you just physically can't hold back how happy you are. Like when people cry tears of joy!"

"Sorta..." Timmy said, ducking his head. "Do you wanna know more?"

"If you're willing to share it," Tony said.

"When I get scared or worried, I rock to calm down. Rocking is just...nice all the time, but it's especially nice when I need comfort. It's how I...self-soothe. And clenching and releasing my fingers is kinda...getting out tension. I dunno why I hum, though. I only hum when things are really bad, an' my best guess about it is that it's something to focus on that isn't bad. I dunno, though," Timmy said.

"That's really cool, kid," DiNozzo said.

"You...think so?" Timmy asked.

"Yeah, I think so. I don't think it would calm _me_  down, but it works for you, and you know how and why it works, and that's really cool."

Timmy grinned and flapped his hands close to his chest. "No one's ever said that before, most people just call it annoying."

"Well, they're wrong, and it's none of their business anyway, now is it?" Tony asked. "I'm really glad you shared this with me, though. And you know, I think Papa would love to know about it too."

"Really?" Timmy asked.

"Well, yeah. You don't often just...spit out whatever you're feeling for everyone to know, which isn't a bad thing, it's just how you think," DiNozzo said. "But this way Papa knows how you're feeling without saying anything. I think he'd really like to know that."

Timmy leaned back in his seat and nodded. "That's another reason why I like having a big brother."

DiNozzo frowned. "How's that?"

"You lemme know what's good to let Papa know an' I don't hafta think about it too hard."

DiNozzo laughed.

"But Tony?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

Timmy smiled and nodded with conviction as he said, "I'm really glad that sometimes you get to be my big brother."

DiNozzo looked back at him and grinned. "I am too, buddy. I am, too."


End file.
